The professional news page of Ernest W. Adams, author of The Designer's Notebook.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Fundamentals of Game Design 2nd Edition is on the presses!

Yesterday I finished work on the next edition of my game design textbook, Fundamentals of Game Design, Second Edition. It has been a long march, but I got it done in time for a September 15th publication date -- which means that at least some professors will be able to use it in the fall semester.

The first edition was published in 2006. Since then a lot has happened in the game industry -- especially the colossal impact of the Nintendo Wii. Apple raised the bar for mobile gaming with the iPhone, and the casual market is bigger than ever. I wrote Fundamentals of Game Design, Second Edition to take these changes into account. The writing is tighter, and I removed outdated material to make room for a lot of new content.

Andrew Rollings is no longer involved, but I was very fortunate to have the assistance of Chris Weaver as my technical editor. Chris is the founder of Bethesda Softworks as well as being a professor at MIT, so he understands both commercial game development and game design education perfectly. Chris made many helpful suggestions about the new edition.

About Me

Dr. Ernest Adams is an independent game design consultant, writer, and teacher. He has been in the game industry since 1989, and is the author of Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design with Joris Dormans,Fundamentals of Game Design, Second Edition, andBreak Into the Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games. Ernest was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions on theDungeon Keeperseries, and for several years before that he was the audio/video producer on theMadden NFL football product line. He is the founder of the International Game Developers' Association, and is a popular lecturer at the Game Developers' Conference and many other events.